SERVING YOUTH: St Teresa Catholic School teacher Bianca Dipilato will be coordinating volunteers across the three-day Australian Catholic Youth Festival in Adelaide from December 3. – See more at: https://mediablog.catholic.org.au/#sthash.QT1gwV9V.dpuf

Bianca Dipilato was determined not to let a number get in the way of attending the first Australian Catholic Youth Festival to be held in Adelaide.

The 30-year-old St Teresa’s School teacher was recently disappointed to discover she was over the 25-year-old age threshold for the festival in December.

“I really wanted to go because it was a national event being held in Adelaide for the very first time – what an amazing experience – and I’d never been to one before,” she said.

While she may not be attending as a pilgrim, she will be at the Convention Centre helping an expected crowd of up to 4000 Catholic youth as a volunteer.

“Even though I was too old for the festival, I still wanted to be a part of it,” said the Religious Education teacher. Continue reading →

Ursuline Sister Kari Hatherell

Parishioners are the unsung heroes of the church, working behind the scenes to keep parishes going and support the work of their priest.

Mission and ministry is not some airy fairy thing just for priests and holy people. It is the day-to-day hard slog of keeping the parish community running. Ministry is essential to offering a place for Catholics to gather, hear God’s word, celebrate the Eucharist and go out into the world refreshed and inspired to live and share the Good News.

Parish ministry often begins by lending a hand at Mass, whether that’s proclaiming the word, becoming a Eucharistic minister or offering to sing with the choir.

It was no different for Ursuline Sister Kari Hatherell who explains that people get involved in lay pastoral ministry ‘usually slowly’. Her own journey began in 1992 at the Caloundra Parish, on the north coast of Queensland. Continue reading →

This year, for the first time ever, Catholic Mission’s hallmark celebration will have a special joint focus on two mission areas when it launches on 1 September.

World Mission Month, celebrated annually in October by millions of Catholics, will this year profile the work of dedicated missionaries in Madagascar as well as remote Indigenous Australia.

The month-long celebration traditionally profiles just one country—in 2014 the campaign highlighted the mission to build a Catholic community and overcome endemic violence and crime in Jamaica.

Catholic Mission National Director Martin Teulan says the new approach will better enable Australians to witness the incredible work of mission happening in places all around the world. ‘It is expected that around 1,100 appeals will take place in parishes around Australia during World Mission Month this year,’ he said. Continue reading →

This week the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office (ACMRO) will celebrate 20 years of work caring for migrants and refugees, with a colloquium on Thursday 27 August at 7pm.

The fifth annual Bishop Joe Grech Memorial Colloquium will be held at the Philippa Brazil Lecture Theatre, Daniel Mannix Building, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne.

The Colloquium is titled, ‘20 Years of Migration Policy in Australia, the Church’s Pastoral Response’. It will be chaired by Sandie Cornish, an expert in Catholic Social Teaching and Province Director of Mission of the Society of the Sacred Heart in Australia and New Zealand. A questions and answers session will follow the keynote addresses. Continue reading →

Bursting onto the Catholic scene in parishes this Christmas, FRANKLY is a fresh new publication that will be a power house in evangelisation and a counter-balance to secular negativity about the Church.

Visually rich in photography and design, and modelled on the warm and conversational style of Pope Francis, FRANKLY is designed to be given as a gift to people on the margins of Catholic faith and practice. Continue reading →

‘Migrants and refugees need our special attention and care, as they are our brothers and sisters’, Bishop Vincent Long said today as he released a parish kit celebrating the 101st World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM CONV is the Bishop Delegate for Migrants and Refugees.

The Catholic Church in Australia has dedicated the month of August to creating awareness of migration, which will culminate with the celebration of the 101st World Day of Migrants and Refugees on Sunday 30 August 2015. The Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office has made a pastoral resource kit available to assist parishes in celebrating the Day. Continue reading →

Climate change is very real in Kirbati. It’s about survival. It’s about saving our islands. It’s about saving our homes, Kiribati native Maria Tiimon-Chi Fang told politicians and church leaders this week.

Environmental NGO’s, politicians and stakeholders gathered at Parliament House on Monday 17 August 2015 to discuss Pope Francis’s environment encyclical, Laudato Si’, focusing on the need for action on climate change.

Maria spoke of the firsthand experiences of those dealing with the reality of climate change. Living in Kiribati, Maria works with the Edmund Rice Centre’s Pacific Calling Partnership. Continue reading →

Helping young Catholics to find and give the love that they were created for, that is the goal for Jason Evert, founder of Chastity Project, when he visits Australia later this year.

Jason will deliver a keynote address at the upcoming Australian Catholic Youth Festival, which takes place in Adelaide from 3-5 December 2015.

‘Pope John Paul II once said that chastity can only be thought of in association with the virtue of love. My hope is that through the presentations I offer, the youth will see how chastity frees them to love and frees them to know if they are being loved,’ Jason told the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Office for Youth. Continue reading →